Watch the team design the board live on Hangouts on Air - or see the videos on YouTube! Part 1 / August 6th: http://blog.upverter.com/the-sensor-network-project-fitbit-clone-part-1 Part 2 - feat. Chris Gammell / August 14th: http://blog.upverter.com/the-open-activity-tracker-fitbit-clone-part-2 Part 3 / August 21st: http://blog.upverter.com/the-open-activity-tracker-fitbit-clone-part-3 Part 4 / August 28th: http://blog.upverter.com/the-open-activity-tracker-fitbit-clone-part-4 Final - Design Review / Sept 3rd: http://blog.upverter.com/the-open-activity-tracker-fitbit-clone-final-review ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** The Idea *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We love our FitBits/FuelBands/Jawbones and the like. But we wanted access to the raw data, and frankly thought no problem, we could make one of those. So here is us putting our design skill where our mouth is. The goal is to create an activity monitoring device that will open source the raw accelerometer data and store it on a Micro SD card. We have decided to make it completely public and collaborative. Every step of the design cycle will be broadcasted live and then posted on YouTube and Google+. The initial part was created by Steve, Mike and Zak. Chris Gammell (@Chris_Gammell / @TheAmpHour) is jumping into the project and will be with us for the second part of the design scheduled for August 14th - 9pm ET. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Part 1 *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the first part of the design, we wanted to get some basic groundwork started: the micro controller, power, storage and one of the sensors. It took us just over an hour do the design, including the PCB. We started by picking the ATTINY26, it should be cheap and has quite a few IO pins and it was a bonus that we have used a ATTINY before. When we started up the project, we split up and hooked up a lipo charger, the programming headers, an accelerometer. We selected the ADXL345 because it was connectable by SPI. the ADXL345 is a basic 3-axis accelerometer with high-resolution measurement. We also used SPI to connect Micro SD, using a IO pin for selecting what device had the interface. A LIPO battery powers the device, with a charger. We left the pins for an external clock open and all the ADC pins are available for expansion. We created a design review; so feel free to leave us comments. We need to clean up the layout and probably consider using alternate/different parts. Any piece of advice is more than welcome at this stage. https://upverter.com/eda/#designId=596cf9d0bd590e03,reviewId=696490ef80d6f7dd,tool=schematic ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Part 2 *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After we finished the first part last week and opened the design for review, we received a lot of comments and suggestions by email, on Twitter and of course directly in the design review page. https://upverter.com/eda/#designId=596cf9d0bd590e03,reviewId=4ff4ed1e094ff2be,tool=schematic This week's live design session focused on going through all of these and make the design better. We replaced the original micro controller by a NXP LPC11U24 and integrated a Bluetooth low energy module - Nordic NRF8001-DK. We are still not sure about which type of display to use. LEDS, e-paper etc. Feel free to drop us a line with your suggestions and any other comments or feedback on the project at that stage! Or use #upverterlivedesign Thanks! And see you next Wednesday for the third part of the design cycle! Live from 8.30 pm EDT! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Part 3 *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We are getting closer! The schematic side of the design is done. We added a Pervasive Displays e-ink screen yesterday night and hooked up everything. It looks good and we will now focus on the PCB layout in our next live design session! The design review is still open so feel free to take a look at the schematic and leave us a note in case we missed something! Your feedback from last week has been really helpful, thank you again! The replay is available on our blog: http://blog.upverter.com/the-open-activity-tracker-fitbit-clone-part-3 Thanks! And see you next Wednesday for the third part of the design cycle! Live from 8.30 pm EDT! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Part 4 *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We thought we could finish the PCB layout in an hour with 4 people working on it, we came close but couldn't finish everything. Zak spent some time on it over Labour Day week end and it looks good now! The replay is available on our blog: http://blog.upverter.com/the-open-activity-tracker-fitbit-clone-part-4 Thanks! And see you next Tuesday for the third part of the design cycle! Live from 8.30 pm EDT! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Design Review *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We have been reviewing the design one last time before ordering some prototypes. Trying to make sure that everything works out of the box. Sam has started a template for the software, it is available here: http://mbed.org/users/sam_grove/code/upverter_fitbit_clone/ Anyone feeling like helping on the code? Please get in touch!